WASHINGTON (AP) — TMZ built its brand tracking celebrities. Now it’s turning its attention to Congress, chasing down paparazzi-style shots of lawmakers on break from Washington during a record-long partial government shutdown.
Videos and photos posted by the tabloid website showing lawmakers in airports, Las Vegas and even Disney World have racked up millions of views and fueled a growing backlash. With travel disruptions persisting and some federal workers going without pay, pressure is mounting on Congress to cut short its regularly scheduled recess.
Beyond TMZ, President Donald Trump also wants lawmakers to come back, even hinting he might invoke rarely used powers to call Congress into session.
Still, it's not clear what a return would accomplish, with the 45-day partial government shutdown at a deeper impasse than ever. The Senate reached a bipartisan funding deal last week, but House Speaker Mike Johnson rejected it, and House Republicans passed their own version before heading for the exits.
“I’m not sure that we’d come,” Democratic Sen. Chris Coons said Monday when asked about members being called back. “And I’m not sure that there would be any difference from what’s happened so far.”
On recess — and on camera
As lawmakers headed out of Washington last week, the celebrity-gossip outlet TMZ put out a call.
“TMZ is on the hunt for photos of politicians on vacay as TSA officers suffer!” the outlet said in a social media post.
The focus from TMZ — an outlet known more for capturing unflattering footage of celebrities than digging into the nuances of federal policy — was the latest example of how politics is being fueled by viral images and populist sentiment.
Videos quickly followed, showing senators moving through airports — often attempting to shield themselves from cameras — with provocative headlines layered on top. The clips racked up millions of views.
The outlet didn’t stop there. Photos of lawmakers on vacation soon followed, including viral images of Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham at Disney World with captions such as: “Lindsey Graham lives it up at Disney World during the partial government shutdown!”
Graham said that he had been in Florida for a meeting with Trump administration officials and had made a stop at Disney World with a friend. He also blamed Democrats for the shutdown.
Another widely shared post showed Democratic Rep. Robert Garcia in Las Vegas.
“Actually I don’t mind what TMZ is doing here,” Garcia posted in response, adding that he was visiting his father. “Like I said a few days ago, Speaker Mike Johnson should have never sent us all home.”
The effort grew out of frustration, said TMZ executive producer Harvey Levin, after the outlet interviewed a TSA worker struggling due to missed paychecks during the shutdown.
“It outraged us so much we wanted to use our platforms to show how Congress — Dems AND Republicans — have betrayed us,” Levin said in a statement.
He added that lawmakers shouldn’t expect the coverage to end anytime soon.
“Several months ago we decided to amp up our presence and our voice,” Levin said. “We now have a producer and a photog circulating in the Capitol, showing the intersection between politics and pop culture.”
Pressure mounts on Congress to return
The backlash playing out online is fueling other pressure as well. Trump has called on Congress to return. He spoke with Senate Majority Leader John Thune on Sunday and Monday, and White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said he has urged leadership to cancel recess “repeatedly.”
“He’ll host a big Easter dinner here at the White House if Congress will come back,” she added.
So far, Republican leadership has not blinked, raising questions about how much pressure Trump will ultimately apply — and whether he would be willing to concede ground to Democrats to end the shutdown.
Unions are adding to that pressure.
“To leave Washington while tens of thousands of workers are going without pay shows a clear lack of respect for the essential employees tasked with keeping our nation safe,” said Hydrick Thomas, president of the American Federation of Government Employees TSA Council 100.
Although vacation snapshots have stirred outrage, recess is also an opportunity for lawmakers to reconnect with constituents back home. Some hold town hall events. Others go on trips abroad, such as joining a delegation to Taiwan.
Why the funding impasse won’t be easy to solve
Even if lawmakers return to Washington, there isn’t an easy way out of the funding impasse.
Senators already labored for weeks to try to find agreement on Democrats’ demand that any funding for the Department of Homeland Security come with restrictions on how federal immigration agents conduct enforcement. In vote after failed vote, Democrats showed they wouldn’t budge.
As the partial government shutdown extended to the longest in U.S. history, the Senate settled on a last-ditch effort to fund most of DHS while leaving out money for Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Border Patrol.
But that deal was rejected by Johnson in the House, who instead pushed through a bill to extend DHS funding on a party-line vote. The collapse of the bipartisan agreement has soured the mood for negotiations and left lawmakers pointing fingers.
“There’s no point in calling us back because that was the result of a conscious choice by the Republican majority,” said Coons, a Delaware Democrat.
Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, told Fox News on Tuesday that the House can come back “on a moment’s notice,” but “the Senate has to do their job and help us on this heavy lift.”
But Thune, a South Dakota Republican, has been clear that he sees no way to get a DHS funding bill through the Senate with its 60-vote threshold for advancing legislation, known as the filibuster.
Still, Thune is coming under renewed pressure to find a way past the funding impasse — with calls from Trump and some conservatives to get rid of the filibuster.
That's unlikely to work either because of a handful of Republican senators who have made it clear they won't vote to change the Senate's rules. Still, Trump told reporters Sunday night that, “They should terminate the filibuster and they should vote.”
Sen. Mike Lee, a Utah Republican, agreed. He said on social media that he thinks one of the only options for the Senate is to “nuke the filibuster and pass everything.”
“Inaction is unacceptable,” he added.
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Associated Press writer Mary Clare Jalonick contributed to this report.
